Our New York correspondent sends us an exceedingly able letter
on Mr. Seward, whose ability and policy he extols, but he quite misses the drift of the English criticism on him. We have had no reason to consider Mr. Seward either practically unfriendly, or indeed, for that matter, practically unwise, but only to think trim an exceedingly silly talker,—a diplomatist whose despatches are much less disliked than laughed at among the reticent European diplomatists. It seemed to us silly in the extreme to talk per- petually of ninety days as the limit of a war which lasted sixteen times as long, and which every child saw as early as the battle of Bull Run was not to be put down in a year. It seemed still sillier to write reams full of sheer rhodomontade, asking, for in- stance, for what purpose " America had been brought up, as it were, from the depths of what had before been known as the dark and stormy ocean," andusing bombastic menace on menace in the interest of peace: Does our correspondent mean that this nonsense had its use? It certainly intimidated no one, for though we all estimated the power of America very highly, we thought she would use other language as soon as she was in earnest ; and it can scarcely have pleased his countrymen to see their Secretary of State so ridi- culous. Marcy and Buchanan, infinitely mischievous as they were, never wrote thus. Why do Americans seem to persist in preferring Mr. Seward's flax of language to the shrewd and pithy wisdom of such a man as Lincoln ? • -
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